I quoted someone in the iPhone 4 thread for the iOS 7.1 update. This person claimed Apple gets a free ride on a lot of mistakes they make. These two threads combined, prove Apple does not, in fact, get a free ride on anything. Take, for instance, the UI drastically changing to something far more interesting visually, yet being universally panned by everyone and their neighbor's dog as disgustingly ugly. Some of the things people complain about have been present in Android for a long time and it was/is cool for Android, but when Apple implements similar ideas in it's own (albeit new) aesthetic, it's like Apple committed manslaughter on your eyes.

iOS 7(.1) really isn't that bad. I feel like a lot of people are being picky just for the sake of being picky...especially where Apple is concerned. This changed, that changed! This used to be here, that used to be there! The end is neigh! Oy vey iz mir! This will probably get down voted out of existence, but think about it: There are going to be people that will not be impressed at all no matter what Apple does and some who might have some issues but find that things work for the most part otherwise. The latter will get used to the issues (until they are hopefully patched) and move on. It's that simple.

The funny thing is, most of the people who complain are just as likely to get the next iPhone and probably hate everything about it and iOS 8 when it comes out. Especially the ones who complain and then state for the record that they will never use another iPhone again. I will be surprised if iOS 8 is released to both critical and consumer acclaim. Apple is doomed.

Improved performance across the board - you mean shorter animates .....Better stability and fewer crashes, particularly on 64-bit iPhones and iPads - tbdRefines iOS 7's design to make it more readable and usable, and it restores a handful of useful iOS 6-era features - oookkkaaaayyyyyyy .... Not seeing it. More like a fixed retraction insertion attempt

We've been waiting for this for six months - and actually got very little of what we wanted BACK.

You act like this is Windows 8 and Microsoft we're dealing with here: it's not. Apple takes many things into consideration before a public release which is why the beta period was so long in the first place. This is definitely an x.1 release if I've ever seen one - a lot of people (myself included) are saying that this makes their phone feel like new. And that in itself is amazing.

The little plus icon beside the number is silly. It suggests that you can type a plus for international numbers.

I know that the + is a convention for listing international numbers, but do you actually dial a + anywhere in the world to make a phone call? I know that neither long-distance nor international calls from the US use it--it's no more part of the number than the dashes or parentheses.

Or are those who would mistake it as part of dialing an international number the same people who think the '1' is part of their long-distance phone number in the US?

One big downside to the circular buttons in the dialer (not new in 7.1, just 7 in general): on an iPhone 4/4S, they're really small.

In the iOS 6 dialer, the buttons were rectangular, so the dialer could span the width of the display: three buttons per row, with each button taking up 1/3 of the width. But now that the buttons are circular, there's a limit to how big they can be, since making them wider would also make them taller (to maintain a perfect circle shape) and therefore encroach on the space used to display the phone number. On the shorter iPhone 4/4S screen, there's less available vertical space, so the buttons actually have to be smaller than on the taller iPhone 5 screen.

It looks odd since you've got this group of tiny buttons in the middle of the screen with big white gaps on either side – about twice as wide as those in the iPhone 5 screenshots from the article. Not to mention that that makes them much smaller touch targets as well, so it's harder to hit them accurately.

I know iOS 7 was designed for the taller iPhone 5 screen, which is understandable – but the old dialer design was equivalent on both screen sizes, so this is a step back. And to add insult to injury, the rectangular keypad is still present in other parts of the OS (like when you set a passcode), so it's not like keeping that design for the dialer would be inconsistent or anything.

While I understand your complaint, do realize that what you are describing is not a bug, it is a difference in how you want the app to function. If I opened up the lyrics to a song, I would be pretty irritated if it just decided to change which lyrics were showing just because the song changed.

I would buy this argument, but in *every* version of iOS I've used before 7.x, the functionality of the lyrics is how I described.

That means from at least iOS 4.x through 6.x, the lyrics behaved how you'd EXPECT lyrics to behave if you're listening to a song: That it changes. With the song. This is the "It Just Works" functionality I'd expect from Apple and what I was getting until iOS 7.0.

So I'll call it a bug. Music in 7.x still has some serious deficiencies, I'm betting this was not by design.

I don't disagree with you that this is probably a bug, rather than a deliberate design choice. However, I don't think it's that obvious how it "should" work. If you're someone who likes having the lyrics there most of the time, then, yes, you probably want the lyrics to track the song. Having them scroll in time like SonudHound would probably be even better. But if you only look at the lyrics occasionally, in order to answer a question, you probably want what you're looking at to continue to be what you're looking at. If I've opened the lyrics at all it's because I want to figure something out, and having the thing I'm trying to figure out disappear while I'm in the middle of figuring it out, or having to pause the music while I figure it out, would be immensely annoying.

Then again, arguing against myself, I've not put lyrics into any of my tracks, precisely because I'm not someone who frequently wants to look at them, so it's quite reasonable to assume that those who bother to add lyrics to their tracks are also people like you, who want to follow along to their songs. Now if having lyrics reliably present in purchased and ripped digital tracks ever becomes the norm, then you have no idea who's looking at the lyrics--but right now, it probably skews heavily to lyric-followers.

Unless people can tell me that it's as responsive and has the same battery life on an iPhone 4 as iOS 6 does, I'm still staying put for now. But I do like most of the interface changes--the phone interface seems a step backwards, particularly the lock-screen answering, but just about everything else looks to be an improvement.

I still think it's overall a less usable interface than iOS 6 (with a few exceptions--but I never use the really bad offenders like Game Center or Podcasts, so I'm not subjected to them on iOS 6, either), but it's not quite as bad. I don't necessarily need buttons, but I want *some* sort of clear cues as to which elements are interactive and which are informational, so I don't have to spend time poking, double-tapping, swiping in each of 4 directions, and otherwise checking every single thing on the screen, just in case it might be an interface element or hiding an interface element. iOS 7 went way too far in the no-cues direction, IMHO, and is almost as obnoxious in that regard as Metro.

iOS 7.1 has changed my opinion on buying a new iPhone from "not until my phone dies" to "OS changes are no longer a factor in the decision". (Though, unfortunately, Verizon is doing an excellent job of making upgrading a lose-lose proposition, and coverage with competitors is poor around here.)

Overall, if this is all they updated, 7.1 sounds underwhelming. 7.0 was a big disappointment - it was slower, ugly flat-design, buggy, and not at all intuitive to use. Things that made sense under 6.x were inexplicably changed to make them annoying. All in all it was a huge Apple fail.

But if making type slightly slimmer or bolder (or changing icon colors) consists of the majority of the changes in the update, then IMHO Apple has finally lost touch with its user base and seems to be having some kind of designer lovefest that focuses on minutiae instead of large, relevant changes.

For example, why have they not reintegrated Podcasts with Music? It was stupid for them to separate that. Why can't I rate my podcasts? Seriously? WTF, Apple?

Editing contacts from messages is kind of stupid, too, as is the overall layout and design of the contact editing screen. Ever try to set the start and end dates for an event on an iPhone 4S screen? Ever realize that they massive scroll wheel hogs the limited real-estate, and you have a tiny area to scroll the screen back to where you can do something else? This is the kind of design fail I'm talking about.

I don't know what Apple is up to, but it needs to pull it's head out of its tail and un-screw-up the mess it made with 7.0. It doesn't look like 7.1 is doing much to fix those shortcomings. Sigh.

totally clean, solid release. no problems, a tribute and props to the dev team and QA team at apple. An amazing feat. and the product rocks, its noticeably faster, looks cleaner (if that's possible) and responds as if its be caffeinated. the 1% battery life drop off is a tiny concern.

to top it of, I updated both an unlocked an locked 5s in a matter of minutes with a couple of keypresses. compare that to a 10 hour marathon who-ha search for my Samsung software - still no joy - and I've renewed my vows. Apple did a great job with this.

and thanks Ars for details and testing. six months isn't really that long for work on a largely changed OS code base.

Why the hell does Apple want to get rid of easy to identify buttons with backgrounds?

These smaller buttons completely suck.

Selecting "Button Shapes" doesn't help at all since it only UNDERLINES text in buttons.

Such crap.

Where do you see this? Every place that shows a shape gives me a filled in shape, not an underline.

I see filled in shapes in the Navigation bar, but every other UI button on every screen (like those that appear in any alert) is simply blue underlined text.

I see outlines around the buttons in the Calendar, in Nav bars, Tool bars and in Button bars, but where ever there is a lone UIButton, the text inside it is underlined just as if it were a 1996 web link.

I'll check within Xcode later on when I install 5.1 to see which buttons are affected.

While I think the button shapes are ugly, I like the url link. The share text is small enough that a button wouldn't fit in that space!

But but but but… It's not a URL. This is confusing metaphors and further confusing the user.

iOS 7 is the destruction of what once was a great user interface.

Please stop spamming the thread with what is essentially the same post.

I'm a designer so I pick up on these same things as you do but majority of people are not designers so they think "I like it! It's got new colors." and that's their reasoning behind liking the new iOS. No other reasoning behind why they like other than, "I just like it." They don't realize it now takes them that additional half second to remember where the buttons are on each page where before they were always a somewhat standardized layout to the button structure.

Again, I believe Tim Cook doesn't have the design eye or care for usability that Steve Jobs had. He probably is letting the programmers just run with it. Which, in my opinion is the same problem that Microsoft suffers from and why no one will ever really feel comfortable on a Windows machine.

I totally agree with you. Standardized placement of certain buttons, now are all over the place. Nothing makes sense anymore on a GUI stand point. It's like they went from "common sense" design of the GUI to "this looks cool" design or what the programmers wanted to do. Programmers make for the worst GUI designers. Trust me, I work with them all the time.

Beyond just button placement, the entire concept of a button has been destandardized.

There used to reliable rules for how buttons looked and behaved. Now, any random collection of pixels may or may not be a button that may or may not be in the depressed state.

For example, in mail the back-navigation button and edit button can now be toggled for visibility via a system setting to display "button shapes. Meanwhile, on the same screen, the compose new email button is not handled in the same way. Even with the system setting to display button shapes, that button and many others are exempt for no good reason other than style.

And why are there button outlines in the unlock screen but nowhere else in the interface?

There is zero consistency! Some people, perhaps most, don't care. But apple used to. The fact that they cared about usability is what made their systems easy to use, even for those people who claim to not care.

Tim Cook did not design iOS 7, Jony Ive did, and he worked directly with Steve Jobs on prior products. I despise people like you that claim "Steve Jobs would never allow this." Get over it. Did you know Steve Jobs never wanted apps on the iPhone, ever. But he had to give in and now look at the iPhone and the millions of apps available.

Siri is god awful slow. I still don't understand why it was architected this way. Why, when I want to call someone in my address book does that command need to be sent to apple's servers? I have good to great LTE speed here. It shouldn't take the phone 5 to 10 seconds to dial a number in my contacts. Generally speaking I find Siri to be of little use in it's current crude form when it seems like it could be great.

Define "great" LTE speed? I get around 40Mb down and 20Mb up. Latency about 15ms slower than my PC gets with wired broadband (and ethernet to the router).

For me Siri works great, I use it constantly and never see any of the 5 to 10 second delays you're complaining about. It's more like 1 second for me.

In my experience, Siri's response speed is VERY dependent on how crowded an area you're in. In NYC it stinks for me. Baltimore, much better.

1. There is no way to play a single album. If you try to play an album, once it reaches the last track it just keeps going on to the next album by that artist. Sometime it also just chooses a songs at random to play. (i never keep my app set to shuffle)

Strange because that's exactly the way it does work on my 5S; start playing an album and it stops at the end.

Quote:

2. If i tilt my phone even the slightest angle it immediately switches to the cover flow view and stays like that forever. Like I have to go out and buy a new phone.

'Forever' being defined to be until you turn it back into portrait? Yes that definitely means you have to go out and buy a new phone!

I can't believe they didn't address a major mail problem in this update. Before ios7 you could determine how many emails you wanted downloaded into your inbox. it would remove older messages so the new could download, but only the amount you indicated would ever be in your inbox. that was taken away and now all new mail downloads. if you delete messages on the iphone, but they're still on your server, they download again. i've seen some complaints online of people with thousands of emails they can't get rid off. i don't use mail on my phone, so all these emails are just taking up space. we were all hoping this simple adjustment would be returned with the first update. to no avail...

I don't necessarily need buttons, but I want *some* sort of clear cues as to which elements are interactive and which are informational, so I don't have to spend time poking, double-tapping, swiping in each of 4 directions, and otherwise checking every single thing on the screen, just in case it might be an interface element or hiding an interface element.

I thought so at first too, but after a while I got used to it astoundingly well. Especially since the swipe-back feature (swipe into the screen from the left to go up/back a level) does away with many button-presses in the top-left corner to begin with. These buttons then ARE more informational than interactive because you stop tapping them and treat them just as an indicator where you actually are and where you end up when you swipe back. I also think that Apple HAD to do this (and did this in a really clever way) to make a larger display on a later iPhone bearable: having to reach to the top-left corner over and over on a ~5" screen isn't really comfortable.

I would have never thought that, but after using 7 for a while I have to confess that Apple did a good job here. There are still details that are less than optimal but all in all it's a clear improvement that gets iOS ready for the future. You'll never appreciate this by just looking at screenshots though. There's the meme that you have to actually use iOS 7 to "get" it and while this might sound pretentious I have to agree with it now.

From what I read, I'll be sticking with 6.1.2 (sic) on my 4S until I decide to get a new phone. Email and actually using the phone for telephony are 2 of the most important uses I have, and the iOS 6 interface for those is just perfect in my eyes.

The little plus icon beside the number is silly. It suggests that you can type a plus for international numbers.

I know that the + is a convention for listing international numbers, but do you actually dial a + anywhere in the world to make a phone call? I know that neither long-distance nor international calls from the US use it--it's no more part of the number than the dashes or parentheses.

Or are those who would mistake it as part of dialing an international number the same people who think the '1' is part of their long-distance phone number in the US?

Different countries have different codes for dialling internationally, so the + is a useful shorthand that the exchange knows it has to convert into the code that routes your call to the international circuit. You just type in a +, then the country code, then the number you want to dial (remembering that in the UK you drop the leading 0), e.g. +44 7775555555, or +353 77555555 (Ireland) or something. I'm in the UK working for a US company and my desk phone has both US and UK numbers, but I have to precede calls with 1, e.g. 918005555555 for the conferencing number we use.

Now international roaming, where probably most people make most of their international calls, has got pretty smart in that you can direct dial both home country and roaming country numbers, but getting a third country is where the + comes in very handy so that you don't have to learn the exit code for the country you're in.

Here in the UK often an incoming number, especially from a text message, will actually start with +44 even though the sender and I are both in the UK.

iOS 7 is a step backwards in my opinion. Case in point: My mom who could never use her cell phone effectively until my dad got her a iPhone. Once she got her iPhone she began to use all the functions of her phone like a normal user (texting, taking pictures, sharing pictures, actually using the phone!!?!). But once my dad updated her iOS from 6 to 7 she's all confused again and her ability to use the phone effectively has dropped. She gets all confused on how to use it because the interface is (again in my opinion) worse.

I don't mind making things simple and looking simple but Apple's choice of simplicity is by far a turn for the worse. Looks like Apple is copying Windows.

Same experience with my dad. When he wanted me to recommend his first smartphone I recommended the iPhone, even though I prefer Android myself, because the iPhone just works. He was able to use it amazingly fast, compared to a computer, which he has used for like 20 years. I showed him the basics, and he started to use many of the features quickly, like email, calendar, SMS, etc. No apps, though. When they upgraded his phone at work, and he had used it for months, he complained to me that it the UI was confusing, messy, and it was hard to see what could be pressed and what could not. Here in Norway I would say most older adults use the iPhone, simply because it is intuitive, and they should be considered as an important group by Apple. Younger people tend to use Android or iPhone. They complain less loudly, because "you shouldn't critisise Apple", but if you ask them, many prefer iOS 6.

Sorry if it's been asked in an earlier post since I'm too lazy to go through all of them. Have you tested the improvements made to Touch ID?

I usually didn't have any problem with it, but sometimes it wouldn't recognize my fingers, usually left thumb, five times in a row that I had to type the long password.

I've only used it some times today, and it seems it's working better. It missed my left thumb a couple of times, but usually made it the second time. I may be lucky, but I want to know whether they made some concrete improvements to it.

7.1 made a huge difference for me. It's working much better now than it was before.

I was getting very frustrated with the Touch ID performance before the update. With 7.1, mine is rock solid. I don't think I've seen the "try again" message once since the install.

Again, I believe Tim Cook doesn't have the design eye or care for usability that Steve Jobs had. He probably is letting the programmers just run with it. Which, in my opinion is the same problem that Microsoft suffers from and why no one will ever really feel comfortable on a Windows machine.

To some degree, I agree with this. Tim Cook's involvement/non-involvement notwithstanding, some of the supposed improvements made to both iOS and MacOS of late have a definite feel of developers making changes more because they feel they must change things, rather than making changes based on a real, demonstrated need for the changes.

For me, the most obvious one that stands out is the loss of full-screen images of contacts when you get a call. That's a long-standing (and pretty obvious) UX feature. I've tried and tried to imagine the argument anyone would give for removing the images, but I really cannot come up with any logical, user-experience-improving reason for this. It's hard for me to believe a backward decision like that survived even the initial design review.

Again, I believe Tim Cook doesn't have the design eye or care for usability that Steve Jobs had. He probably is letting the programmers just run with it. Which, in my opinion is the same problem that Microsoft suffers from and why no one will ever really feel comfortable on a Windows machine.

For me, the most obvious one that stands out is the loss of full-screen images of contacts when you get a call. That's a long-standing (and pretty obvious) UX feature. I've tried and tried to imagine the argument anyone would give for removing the images, but I really cannot come up with any logical, user-experience-improving reason for this. It's hard for me to believe a backward decision like that survived even the initial design review.

I can kinda see the rationale. I got a call today and there were loads of buttons on the screen. Having a backdrop that's different for each contact could make the buttons difficult to read and when you have the phone to your ear you don't see the screen anyway.

I stumbled across swipe-then-tap-to-delete in Mail's list view and it is *awesome*. I'm 90% sure it's new in 7.1, since I had hunted in vain for a way to get that pre-7.0 functionality back after it disappeared.

Most of the copious auto-notifications that fill my work inbox require only a quick scan of subject and preview before going in the trash, so adding a couple taps per message in 7.0 was really onerous. The new gesture isn't quite as swift as in Dropbox's wonderful Mailbox app, but Mailbox doesn't support Exchange accounts yet.

Swipe, delete. Swipe, delete. Yay!

[EDIT] Except I was wrong. Downvotes on this post compelled me to check my facts with an iOS 7.0 device. That feature was actually there before the update. Mea culpa.

Most of the changes made sense from a usability perspective, but then they removed contact photos from the caller ID when receiving a call? That sucks, and seems to directly contradict the other usability changes.

^^ This. Why replace the full screen contact photo with overlaid buttons with a posy little contact photo and a mostly blank screen. There is plenty of screen real-estate left to have a larger photo even if they wanted to keep the buttons distinct.

I liked the view where I did have them, but it's no major loss for me because I don't have photos of most of my contacts.

I use Sync.ME to populate my contacts with photos from either Facebook or LinkedIn. You can also get them from Google+ but I've managed, so far, to avoid setting up an account. There is a free version and a paid version which offers some more functionality, I use the free version.

Different countries have different codes for dialling internationally, so the + is a useful shorthand that the exchange knows it has to convert into the code that routes your call to the international circuit. You just type in a +, then the country code, then the number you want to dial (remembering that in the UK you drop the leading 0), e.g. +44 7775555555, or +353 77555555 (Ireland) or something. I'm in the UK working for a US company and my desk phone has both US and UK numbers, but I have to precede calls with 1, e.g. 918005555555 for the conferencing number we use.

Now international roaming, where probably most people make most of their international calls, has got pretty smart in that you can direct dial both home country and roaming country numbers, but getting a third country is where the + comes in very handy so that you don't have to learn the exit code for the country you're in.

Here in the UK often an incoming number, especially from a text message, will actually start with +44 even though the sender and I are both in the UK.

I'm still not sure I understand. So on phones in UK there is a + button, along with the number, *, and # keys? Is this true of physical phone buttons, or is this just a convention for virtual buttons like the iPhone's dialer? I'm just trying to figure out whether you actually dial a +, or this is just a convention when writing the number? (I've never dialed a + when calling internationally, which I do all the time at work, but maybe I could? Though I wouldn't have a clue how, since there's no such button on my work phone.)

The biggest thing with 7.1 for me is that Touch ID accuracy has been improved. I started using it a few weeks ago and was about to turn it off since every time it took several attempts to unlock with fingerprint recognition. Now it works almost every time. It went from "piece of garbage" to useful feature.

My macbook air crashed last week and all my data was lost and it was only a year old. My iPhone constantly crashes after the new update last fall and keeps losing my email accounts which I then have to resync, and the camera app is very inconsistent on when it will take the picture after I click. I bought these products in the last two years because people raved about how great the customer service was but they didn't even seem to care about the fact I lost all my data when their computer, which was pretty expensive, completely failed me within a year, then they never even called me back when it was all fixed! I had to call in an ask what was going on to which I found out it had been fixed the night before and no one called to tell me. I will not be using any apple products after I trade my phone in when my upgrade arrives and as for the computer I just don't trust it anymore so I'll just give it to my nephew most likely. What a waste of money.

It's in the "choose wireless network" tab, switching between two networks. The "other" tab no longer say "other", but the name of whatever network I'mconnected to. When pressed however, I do go into the other tab.

Not a biggie at all, but introducing new bugs at this point?

(iPhone 4s, I need to change back and forth to reproduce it, says "others" to begin with)

Again, I believe Tim Cook doesn't have the design eye or care for usability that Steve Jobs had. He probably is letting the programmers just run with it. Which, in my opinion is the same problem that Microsoft suffers from and why no one will ever really feel comfortable on a Windows machine.

For me, the most obvious one that stands out is the loss of full-screen images of contacts when you get a call. That's a long-standing (and pretty obvious) UX feature. I've tried and tried to imagine the argument anyone would give for removing the images, but I really cannot come up with any logical, user-experience-improving reason for this. It's hard for me to believe a backward decision like that survived even the initial design review.

I can kinda see the rationale. I got a call today and there were loads of buttons on the screen. Having a backdrop that's different for each contact could make the buttons difficult to read and when you have the phone to your ear you don't see the screen anyway.

But I still think a larger contact picture would be better.

Well, and if the problem is in fact "buttons are hard to see/distinguish/hit" then fixing the buttons seems like a better solution than changing something that is not the buttons.

I'm still not sure I understand. So on phones in UK there is a + button, along with the number, *, and # keys? Is this true of physical phone buttons, or is this just a convention for virtual buttons like the iPhone's dialer? I'm just trying to figure out whether you actually dial a +, or this is just a convention when writing the number? (I've never dialed a + when calling internationally, which I do all the time at work, but maybe I could? Though I wouldn't have a clue how, since there's no such button on my work phone.)

The + can replace the international exit code in a number. If calling an international number from the US, you prefix it with the exit code 011. So, for calling the UK from the US, you start the number with 011 44 (with 44 being the UK country code). However, you can replace the 011 with a + if you have that key on your phone (which a lot of mobile phones do, often holding down 0 or *), so you would dial +44 instead.

Why this can be useful is if you travel internationally to a country that uses as different exit code. For instance, New Zealand uses 00 instead of 011. So to call the UK from NZ you would dial 00 44. But you can also dial +44 instead and that will work as well. So, you can store the UK number in your address book as +44 and you can call it from either the US or NZ without having to know the international exit code for either country.

I stumbled across swipe-then-tap-to-delete in Mail's list view and it is *awesome*. I'm 90% sure it's new in 7.1, since I had hunted in vain for a way to get that pre-7.0 functionality back after it disappeared.

Not new, 7.0 had it as well.

You might have missed it because 7.x reversed the direction of the swipe, and added "More" options.

I was kinda annoyed at the former before I got accustomed to it, but the latter is a real improvement.

I stumbled across swipe-then-tap-to-delete in Mail's list view and it is *awesome*. I'm 90% sure it's new in 7.1, since I had hunted in vain for a way to get that pre-7.0 functionality back after it disappeared.

Not new, 7.0 had it as well.

You might have missed it because 7.x reversed the direction of the swipe, and added "More" options.

I was kinda annoyed at the former before I got accustomed to it, but the latter is a real improvement.

7.x didn't reverse the direction of the swipe, it just (inexplicably) eliminated one of the directions. Make the interface harder to use for no reason, that's Apple's new mantra.

I stumbled across swipe-then-tap-to-delete in Mail's list view and it is *awesome*. I'm 90% sure it's new in 7.1, since I had hunted in vain for a way to get that pre-7.0 functionality back after it disappeared.

Not new, 7.0 had it as well.

You might have missed it because 7.x reversed the direction of the swipe, and added "More" options.

I was kinda annoyed at the former before I got accustomed to it, but the latter is a real improvement.

7.x didn't reverse the direction of the swipe, it just (inexplicably) eliminated one of the directions. Make the interface harder to use for no reason, that's Apple's new mantra.

It's not inexplicable, it's because swiping left to right is now a shortcut for going back to the previous view. If they had kept the left-to-right swipe on the message as well, it would be ambiguous what you meant to do.

I stumbled across swipe-then-tap-to-delete in Mail's list view and it is *awesome*. I'm 90% sure it's new in 7.1, since I had hunted in vain for a way to get that pre-7.0 functionality back after it disappeared.

Not new, 7.0 had it as well.

You might have missed it because 7.x reversed the direction of the swipe, and added "More" options.

I was kinda annoyed at the former before I got accustomed to it, but the latter is a real improvement.

7.x didn't reverse the direction of the swipe, it just (inexplicably) eliminated one of the directions. Make the interface harder to use for no reason, that's Apple's new mantra.

It's not inexplicable, it's because swiping left to right is now a shortcut for going back to the previous view. If they had kept the left-to-right swipe on the message as well, it would be ambiguous what you meant to do.

Only if you swipe from the edge. If swiping from the edge isn't a good enough differentiator, then why did they require it to be from the edge? As it is, if you swipe the wrong way on an email, it's interpreted as a tap, which isn't "go back" or "delete", it's just a third thing.

I had an issue with the TouchID sensor that I haven't been able to find a solution for online, but so far it seems to be gone with the 7.1 update. Loving that!

What was happening is that occasionally the sensor wouldn't activate at all. No attempt at reading a finger would be made. Turning the screen off, then trying again would fix it but it was more annoying than it might seem.

Hopefully I'm right, and the software solved this issue. I still wonder if it happened with others though.

I stumbled across swipe-then-tap-to-delete in Mail's list view and it is *awesome*. I'm 90% sure it's new in 7.1, since I had hunted in vain for a way to get that pre-7.0 functionality back after it disappeared.

Not new, 7.0 had it as well.

You might have missed it because 7.x reversed the direction of the swipe, and added "More" options.

I was kinda annoyed at the former before I got accustomed to it, but the latter is a real improvement.

7.x didn't reverse the direction of the swipe, it just (inexplicably) eliminated one of the directions. Make the interface harder to use for no reason, that's Apple's new mantra.

It's not inexplicable, it's because swiping left to right is now a shortcut for going back to the previous view. If they had kept the left-to-right swipe on the message as well, it would be ambiguous what you meant to do.

Only if you swipe from the edge. If swiping from the edge isn't a good enough differentiator, then why did they require it to be from the edge?

Because otherwise you couldn't scroll horizontally any more at all.

Quote:

As it is, if you swipe the wrong way on an email, it's interpreted as a tap, which isn't "go back" or "delete", it's just a third thing.

If missing the edge by one pixel when swiping makes all the difference between going back and deleting an email this would be more than annoying. Also swiping to the left to reveal buttons on the right feels pretty much natural.

Come on, you can't really argue about that? It's totally obvious why they did that and it works just fine.